Generally, vascular access devices may be used for communicating fluid with a vascular system of a patient. For example, catheter assemblies may be used for infusing fluid, such as normal saline solution, various medicaments, and total parenteral nutrition, into a patient, withdrawing blood from a patient, or monitoring various parameters of the vascular system of the patient.
A common type of intravenous (IV) catheter is an over-the-needle peripheral IV catheter. As its name implies, an over-the-needle catheter may be mounted over an introducer needle having a sharp distal tip. At least the inner surface of the distal portion of the catheter tightly may engage the outer surface of the needle to prevent peelback of the catheter and thus facilitate insertion of the catheter into the blood vessel. The catheter and the introducer needle may be assembled so that the distal tip of the introducer needle extends beyond the distal tip of the catheter with the bevel of the needle facing up away from skin of the patient. The catheter and introducer needle are generally inserted at a shallow angle through the skin into a blood vessel.
In order to verify proper placement of the needle and/or catheter in the blood vessel, the clinician generally confirms that there is “flashback” of blood in a flashback chamber of the catheter assembly. Once placement of the needle has been confirmed, the clinician may temporarily occlude flow in the blood vessel at the catheter tip, remove the needle, leaving the catheter in place, and attach a device to the catheter assembly for fluid removal, input, or to seal the catheter assembly. This process has been somewhat difficult in practice since many placement sites simply do not allow easy occlusion of the target vessel. Additionally, even when such occlusion is achieved, it may be imperfect, thus resulting in blood leaking from the catheter assembly, endangering the medical personnel employing it.
Catheter and introducer needle assemblies have thus been provided in the art that provide a variety of seals or “septa” for preventing outflow of fluid during and following removal of the introducer needle. Septum dislodgement is often likely to result in fluid leakage. Septum dislodgement and fluid leakage from an IV catheter assembly may occur due to various circumstances. For example, fluid leakage may occur due to pressurization of the system, which may result from venous pressure, fluid injection under high or low pressure, flush of the system, blood collection, etc.